


Of Monsters and Women

by theheartofthekoko



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alice-centric, Gen, References to Sexual Assault, References to self-harm, Season 2, julia-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25970752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheartofthekoko/pseuds/theheartofthekoko
Summary: Monsters are made—no one in the group knew that better than Alice and Julia.Or: a character study of Alice and Julia and all the little ways they're the same.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	Of Monsters and Women

Julia’s descent came in stages. The first, before she even knew what had happened. Papered-over memories of Reynard the fox— _you can’t unring a bell, Julia—_ made beautiful and pure. She could feel the power within her, even here, in Ember’s tomb, could feel the goddesses touch upon her heart. But then Ember ripped away the tissue-thin walls Marina had crafted, and all Julia could remember was blood and death and pain. Our Lady of the Underground’s touch ripped away—she wanted to burn Reynard’s off like cauterizing a wound, but she couldn’t.

The second, when the bodies of Quentin’s friends, of Quentin even, laid strewn around her, and she could barely bring herself to care. Leo blade held to Martin Chatwin’s throat, she demanded he help her kill a god— _you know how to fuck their shit up—_ and even as she lead them all to their deaths, she couldn’t feel that part inside of her that she knew would normally be screaming at her to stop, to help, to care. She refused to live in a world where Reynard was free—she couldn’t.

The third, when Martin reached his hand into her chest and pulled pulled pulled until she was gone. All of her pain, all of her fears, all of that Julia bravery knotted up in his fists and she felt free, like she could fly. She could squash Reynard like a bug right then, and not even care. But where was the justice in that? He needed to feel her pain, feel the fury of it when she ripped his heart out and ate it whole— _put it back, I need it—_ but you can’t unring a bell, and she knew now, how much better it would be without this shackle on her heart, the weight of her shade anchoring her in the pain.

The last happened all at once. She woke up, feeling rested and light—free. Kady told her why— _there was a complication—_ shade stripped from her in her sleep. She couldn’t even mourn its loss, couldn’t feel much of anything. Even revenge on Reynard was a dull thought at the back of her mind, dampened by her inability to care about anything at all. She reveled in it, feeling whole and happy for the first time since before, before they’d rung that bell and summoned a monster. She didn’t even realize she was becoming one right alongside him, the bit of Julia that would know, would’ve seen her for what she was, had been stripped from within her. She’d gone to sleep Julia but had woken up something else entirely.

***

Alice’s descent came all at once. Quentin was on the ground, bleeding, and she couldn’t let them all die again. There were no more do-overs, no more resets of the clock, and it was all up to her. She shot spell after spell at Martin until he was a stumbling mess, but it wasn’t enough. He had decades on her, and he’d made the wellspring his, full of its power. All Alice had was her untapped potential. It wasn’t enough.

She met her unmaking with open arms, hands blazing with the power of the Rhinemann Ultra as it flayed the magic from within her bones. She didn’t expect it to hurt this much. She wasn’t on fire; she was becoming fire—a pure unencumbered blue filling her up. It made its home within her, making space by removing that little bit of Alice that wasn’t needed anymore, her shade, and cauterizing the wound with its burning heat.

She was so weightless that she almost floated away, into the clouds to find the secrets of the world. All that knowledge out there, waiting for her. Why was she still here? But she saw Martin, and wouldn’t that be fun? Toying with him was easy— _I did it on purpose—_ killing him was even easier. She pulled his ribcage apart like cotton candy, and all the life flew out of him.

It was too easy. She’d wanted to play with him a while longer. So, when she saw Quentin lying there, that devastated look on his face, she thought she’d have a little fun. But then Margo and Eliot broke up the party, and Quentin set his cacodemon free. It hurt again, to be ripped from her flesh, piece by piece. She thought she even screamed.

It was worse to be shoved into a cage. Niffin aren’t meant to be contained like this, and the walls of Quentin’s tattoo felt like they were rubbing her raw. She could feel every second pass within him, as her clear, unencumbered thoughts screamed at her to fly away. She walked into this, chose to become a monster, but not this cage. She hadn’t chosen this. And with each passing minute, she felt her fury grow, molten hot in the confines of her cage.

***

It took Quentin almost dying for Julia to realize what she’d lost, how far she’d sunken. She’d used him as bait for Reynard’s trap, for Alice’s meal. She’d pushed him beyond the boundaries of Brakebills, made him vulnerable and weak. He’d be dead if Reynard’s son hadn’t shown up and gone off with him. Even then, Julia felt nothing. She could feel where regret should be ricocheting inside her, but there was nothing—just silence.

So, when Quentin showed up, she turned him away. But he stayed, on the other side of the door, waiting for her to let him in. She couldn’t.

“You know, I never once stopped to ask if I was doing the right thing,” she said, voice carrying through the door to him. “And now that’s all I ask. If I did this, would Q look at me like I’m evil? I can’t really feel any of it anymore. I’m doing it from memory. I’m broken, and that makes me dangerous. So, you should go.”

He didn’t respond. The silence settled between them so completely that she wondered if he was even still there. She hoped he was, hoped he wasn’t, couldn’t figure out this logic puzzle.

“Jules, I talked to your shade,” he finally said.

And that changed everything.

They went into the bowels of a dragon’s den, descended into the underworld, and Julia felt nothing. She saw Alice’s shade, saw her own, but everything was numb. It was a pantomime of how she was supposed to act, what she was supposed to do.

“Are you okay?” her shade asked.

“Not really. Not without you,” she answered.

It was the truth. She wasn’t Julia anymore, just a shell with only half of herself stuffed in, all that made her good standing in front of her. Her shade. In that moment, she almost _wanted._ But Quentin was crying, and he’s her whole moral compass. She knew—knew what the right thing to do was. She grabbed little Alice’s hand and knew she’d made the right call.

With Alice’s shade nestled within her, Julia felt everything. Nausea at what she’d done to Quentin, the rushing grief of all that she’d lost—everything. She pushed it down deep, focused on getting Alice back. There’s no time for her grief, and it won’t be hers much longer. When she gave up the only shade she’d ever have, she felt the loss like an ache. But not all monsters do monstrous things. She would never be right again, but with Quentin and Kady, she could change. She would.

***

Alice was soaring in the clouds, untethered. She could see everything from up there, every atom of every cloud, the water hidden within each told a story of lakes and rivers, of the animals who drank it, of the way it would fall. She could see it all. In that instant, she was free. But then it all went wrong.

She could feel her shade for the first time since she’d broken free. It was like a noose around her neck, pulling her down down down. She fought with all her might, leaving her choking and breathless for air she no longer needed. She tried to burn it away, blue fire springing from her fingertips, but there was nothing there to burn.

She descended, stripped of freedom, hurled into a cage, and there it was. Her shade. Chubby cheeked and bright—Alice wanted to rip her apart, burn her a dazzling blue until there was nothing left. She lunged, but the noose around her neck yanked her back, strangling her. She whirled, and there he was: Quentin Coldwater, looking desperate and afraid with so much humanity burning in his eyes. It made her sick.

“I’ll burn you alive for this!” she shrieked.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said.

She snarled the snarl of a creature not meant to be caged, trying to find a weak spot in the iron bars. But Quentin and Mayakovsky kept chanting. The noose pulled tighter, hurling Alice toward her shade. She felt it try to merge with her, felt it leak into her being like a putrid oil spill. It hurt. She was unmade, remade all wrong.

“Please. Please, Quentin—don’t,” she said, desperation in every word.

He doesn’t listen. Agony flashed through her, every inch of her skin on fire, and then—she was whole.

Quentin looked happy as he prattled on about food and clothes and all those human niceties she’d long since stopped caring about. She looked into a mirror and stared at a girl who wasn’t her, could never be her. Eyes dead and unfeeling, trapped in a meat suit that no longer fit quite right. She could almost see the places where she’d blurred around the edges, desperately trying to break free. She didn’t want this, never wanted this.

“Why?” she asked the mirror, refusing to look at him.

“I couldn’t leave you like that,” he said.

As if that would mean anything to her. As if him wanting her here meant anything when she could be _free._

She turned away from the mirror, unable to look at herself anymore, that sack of rotten meat staring back at her with her own eyes. That just left Quentin.

“Fuck you,” she said, but even that came out deadened.

There’s no victory when he turned around and left, no triumphant thought. Just numb fingers and thoughts slowly curdling in her once-sharp mind.

***

Julia stood, gun pointed at Reynard, but her eyes were fixed on Persephone. If she was able to feel rage, she would have, as she stared at the woman who birthed that monster, who let him hurt so many people, hurt _her._ She had the gall to beg for his life.

“I lost my friends, I lost everything,” she said, gun still held up in shaky hands. “He turned me into a monster.”

“You’re a survivor,” Persephone said. “You’re still capable of mercy, Julia. Don’t let him rob you of that.”

Just like that, her thoughts turned to Quentin, on the ground at Reynard’s feet, looking up at her like she was a monster. Would he look at her like one now? He thought every life was sacred, would that apply here, to this beast of a man? She didn’t know. How could she know anything as she was, half of a person, with the most important bits scooped out. Kady was still frozen at her side. She was alone in this. She lowered the gun, doubt creeping in.

Julia felt numb when they left, numb when Kady yelled at her, numb when she stormed off too. Her world was shifting grey, like the stormy clouds above. There was no revenge to be had, no fixing the hole going straight through her.

But then, there she was: Julia’s shade, smiling brighter than Julia ever remembered doing.

“Our lady sent me,” her shade said.

And then, they were together, merged by the power of the goddess herself. Julia could feel everything, alone in that field. Everything, all at once. She was drowning in it.

***

All of Alice’s thoughts were muddled, running through her brain like mud, and she was desperate. Desperate to grasp onto as many pure, unencumbered thoughts as she could, pulling at them and immortalizing them with paper and ink before they all turned to rocks, solid and immovable. Her short stint of freedom fading, fading, but never gone. All her clean, pure thoughts turned tainted, bitter, and her only thoughts of Quentin were that _he brought her shade back, shoved her into this sack of meat, and she’s so furious she could kill him if only—_

Mayakovsky buzzed like a fly in her ear, trying to convince her that having her shade back was a _blessing,_ instead of the prison it was. Quentin practically begged her to ask him to stay. She could see all the little cracks within him. All the places she could dig and dig until there was nothing of him left, but she’s so tired, and the words weren’t coming. He left. She didn’t ask him to stay.

He was gone long enough for her entire body to turn to marble, joints not connecting properly, skin turning to ice. She just wanted to feel something, _anything,_ so when her hand grazed the open flame of the candle, she didn’t pull away. Because in that instant, she felt warmth on her skin, then unbridled heat as her palm puckered and blistered in the fire, and for that instant, Alice felt like a person again. When Quentin caught her and made her swallow a potion so she couldn’t harm herself, she wondered if it would even work when she’s not sure she could even tell what pain feels like anymore.

“Why did you bring me back?” she asked.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” he demanded. “I watched you almost die trying to bring your brother back. You loved him. I love you.”

Her brain filled with bees at the mention of her brother. It almost felt like pain, like grief, but she’s not sure she knew what that was anymore. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to try to analyze her thoughts, put them back into any order that made sense. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

“I’d like to be alone now.”

She’s pretty sure it’s happiness she was feeling when he left. 

***

Julia’s been on the couch for days. Ever since she’d gotten her shade back, was gifted it by Persephone herself, she’d been on the couch. And what a gift it was. She could feel the pain pulling her down. She was drowning in it, in the bodies that had been strewn all around her living room, of what Reynard had taken from her. She couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop freaking the fuck out. So, she stayed on the couch.

Julia knew she was whole again on a fundamental level. Her soul had been returned, that little piece of her that was good and brave and kind. But all it seemed to do now was make her weep, bring her down, leave her immobile. There was a not insignificant part of her that wanted someone to tear it out of her again. She’d gotten used to the numb, and it had left the wounds fresh and aching all over again.

The door opened, and she barely cared to look up. When she finally did, there Eliot stood. He looked uncomfortable enough that she tried to pull it together. It didn’t work. It never did. She gave him the amulet he asked for, to make him invisible to a god, and hoped to hell he’d leave. He didn’t.

“I don’t pretend to understand what you’ve been through,” he said. “But I can tell you, the way you’re relating to that couch is not unknown to me.”

“Then you know I want to be alone,” she replied.

He came closer but didn’t touch her or try to console, eyes kinder than she deserved. She took a drag of her cigarette and looked away.

“Also, that you probably shouldn’t be right now.”

“Why do you care?”

“I just do.”

She had nothing to say to that, nothing to make him leave. He asked her to come with him, to help him reason with a god. She didn’t know if she could. But he kept talking, reasoning with the little part of Julia that was pragmatic enough to know he was right and kind enough to notice the wild look in his eyes. She got up off the couch and put some pants on.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Brakebills South to meet up with Quentin,” he said.

“How’s he doing with Alice?”

“She’s—” he started, stumbling. “She’s not Alice right now, not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say, I think finding her in the midst of a crying jag would actually be a relief.”

***

Ember laid dead at Umber’s feet, and Julia held a sword in her hands. She barely knew what was happening, what the stakes were, but she saw a god, a bully in front of her, and all she could think of were Reynard’s taunts as he’d taken them out, one by one.

“You want to know why you’re so bored?” she said, voice scalding. “Because you’re too stupid to get it. You’re too spoiled and entitled to understand—”

“How dare you?” he replied, advancing on her. “I am a god.”

“Are you? Really? I’m not impressed.”

She felt solid and sure for the first time since she’d gotten her shade back. This was going to work. They were going to take him down. He was just another ruthless god, taking whatever he wanted and punishing the rest of them for his own sins. He was nothing. 

“I’ve met scary gods, and you?” she said. “You’re nothing but a petty tyrant.”

But then she was choking, throat squeezed tight by his magic. she wasn’t there anymore. She was back, in that circle as they summoned a god, as the bodies fell all around her, as Kady ran and didn’t come back. As everything was taken from her.

She fell to the floor when his hold on her faded, like a puppet with her strings cut. She’s gasping for breath and no one seemed to notice, too focused on the dead gods in front of them, and Quentin’s triumph over them. Julia remembered how to breathe in stages. No one noticed. She got up and walked away. Everything still hurt, but she was standing.

***

Alice wasn’t eating, hadn’t since she’d gotten back. It wasn’t about death, about slowly killing herself like Quentin seemed to think. She just didn’t want to be even more weighted down. Her body felt like a sack of loose meat and bones, anchoring her to the ground. But with her stomach empty, she could almost pretend she was flying again, up in the clouds. Almost.

It was the bacon that did it. Bacon had never been one of her favorites, but when Quentin walked in with a plate full, the smell drifted. It made her ravenous. And suddenly she felt like the caged animal she was, desperate for scraps of food and freedom. She ate the entire plate, then stared down at her greasy hands, horrified.

“With every good thing, no matter how small it is,” she said. “It’s always married to something completely disgusting.”

“You’re right. It’s gross. We are animals.”

He took her hand, wiping the grease off gently. She’d forgotten what the feel of someone else’s skin felt like. Why did it feel so good? She’s not sure she can tell what pleasure is anymore because she kissed Quentin, fucked him, and it felt just the same as eating bacon, just the same as lighting herself on fire.

But then Quentin said it: he’d killed a god. How could he be so fucking stupid? Her mind might be turning to sludge as she slowly forgot all that she knew, all that she had. But she remembered enough to know that this would have consequences. The old gods would turn everything off, all the magic in the universe. She’d lose what little magic she had left to his reckless stupidity. And then it disappeared into the air. It was gone. 

***

Julia had tried to go the normal route. She’d applied to law school and been excepted. She went to three weeks of classes, but you really can’t unring a bell, and that secret part of Julia that knew magic existed couldn’t go back to the mundane world. She’d done all the assignments, slipped into memories best forgotten, and felt like she was losing herself to the monotony of it all.

Then it happened: she was curled up on her couch once more, performing tut after tut on autopilot. She twisted her finger just so, and then there were sparks. Faint. Barely a sparkle compared to the flame throwers the spell had once conjured, but they were there. She had _magic._ There was still magic in the world, even if it had faded. Maybe she could do something with it. Maybe they could get it back. She had to tell Quentin.

“I need to show you something, and you need to promise me that you won’t tell anyone,” she told him. “Because you’re the only person that I trust.”

“I promise.”

She performed the tuts, saw his pity turn to wonder at the marvel in her hands. There was _magic._ They would figure this out, bring it all back—together.

***

Alice went back to Brakebills. It was the closest she could get to magic now. She wanted to feel that weightlessness again, that burning fire, but couldn’t. And it was Quentin’s fault. She couldn’t even look at him, hadn’t talked to him since that night in Brakebills South. He sat three feet away from her, learning useless tuts day after day, and she thought she might hate him. Alice felt too hollowed out to find sympathy or kindness within herself. She was a husk, insides scooped out and then forced back in. She was angry. She was bored.

But then Friar Joseph paid a visit, and her anger turned to fear.

“As a Niffin, you made enemies,” he said. “I’m here to warn you that one of them seeks you.”

“Who?” she asked.

“The Lamprey. You do recall what you did to its family?”

Just like that Alice was terrified. Lamprey’s had long memories and she was far too mortal now, so easily wounded. Friar Joseph faded into the night, and she ran. There was no plan, no reason, just the fear of an animal finding itself in a cage. She didn’t stop running for a long time. 


End file.
